Measurement of Spin Correlation in Top-Antitop Quark Events and Search for Top Squark Pair Production in pp Collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV Using the ATLAS Detector

Abstract

A measurement of spin correlation in $t\bar{t}$ production is presented using data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb${}^{-1}$. The correlation between the top and antitop quark spins is extracted from dilepton $t\bar{t}$ events by using the difference in azimuthal angle between the two charged leptons in the laboratory frame. In the helicity basis the measured degree of correlation corresponds to $A_{helicity}=0.38\pm 0.04$, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction. A search is performed for pair production of top squarks with masses close to the top quark mass decaying to predominantly right-handed top quarks and a light neutralino, the lightest supersymmetric particle. Top squarks with masses between the top quark mass and 191 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level.

7 pages plus author list + cover pages (20 pages total), 2 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PRL, All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/TOPQ-2014-07/

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